I think if the left stopped promoting and defending violence, that might be a start! atleast thats the whitetrash half of what my brain thinks. i think if the left would stop hiding behind the First Amendment, and stop promoting and defending certain video games which are really only mass killing simulators might help abit as well. one thing in common with all these young mass killers, is that they are and have all been addicted to the most violent of these games. i work for a school district, and we have a few technology teachers that hold meets with kids after hours in our tech labs to form virtual teams and engage in killing games.

I have two questions....What can the Left do to reduce this risk? Is it even possible for the left to admit their part in these events?

Just my white trash 2cents...

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it's not the left or the right, it's their parents. the political spectrum does not raise kids, other kids and media raise them when their parents defer that task in favor of other priorities. and some of those kids aren't quite right in the head. our society used to have an answer for that - parents who were connected to each other and to their kids. those kind of parents could identify a troubled kid early cause they knew them, loved them, acted in their best interest. now they don't see the signs cause they don't know the kid, and when they do see the signs they pass the buck with vigor. it's the school's fault, it's the government's fault, it's the fault of video game manufacturers, it's the fault of the left, or the right, etc. i do see that in some ways lots of influences (culture, media, legislation, schools, whatever) make the job of parenting more difficult in the modern era, but it's still the job that we sign up for when we bring a life into the world, and parents are still the only ones who can do it. clearly the model for raising a healthy human being is a connected family, and no matter how difficult it is to have one, it's in the hands of parents to either make it happen or surrender and blame something they can't control. you can control how you parent and there is nothing more influential on the direction of a child's life than parenting.

Any of you here that weren't breathing in the 50's need a history lesson. You could go in to a hardware store and buy a gun. You could put that gun in a rack or under the seat of the truck and no one would steal it. Most kids got a 22 in their early teens if not sooner. People left their doors unlocked at night, no tweakers would break in. Most small town kids went to school and hunting afterwards, guns in the car or truck they drove to school. No mass murders that I can recall, with the exception of Korea, but that was war.

Families had a father and mother for the most part. Sunday the family went to church or temple. Most kids finished high school and went on to work or college. Marriages lasted longer, fewer single parents. Sorry, no same sex marriages...

If trouble started between folks, the last thought was to go shoot someone. ADD HDD, and the other alphabet soup of disorders were rare if at all. Yeah, there was always one kid that stood out as being weird. But they weren't killing people. It wasn't in our makeup.

Kids in the inner cites didn't have it so good. What was there to do in the "concrete jungle"? It didn't take long for gangs to develop, not the Crips and Bloods just yet, but that would come. Organized crime that began during Prohibition would grow and become sophisticated. Drugs began to show up more often. But even then and there, no mass murders.

As our populations grew, cities became crowded, suburbs began. Communities began to disappear. People stayed in their houses, church attendance dropped. Divorce rates rose. Counter-cultures blossomed. Racial unrest rioted. The Nation entered Viet Nam, killing popped up on the evening news every night. Black Panthers wanted to take over...

Now we are in the period where most of us can look at our society and see it's ills. It's not the guns, it's us, each and every one of us that lets the decline of the Republic continue. For the Republic is no more than each and every one of us. We are the solution, not the legislators.

Don't look for someone else to fix it, start with yourself and how you live your life and treat those around you.

"In 1954, there were only a dozen armed robberies in London but, by the 1990s — after decades of ever tightening gun-ownership restrictions — there were more than a hundred times as many armed robberies."

I just wanted to pointout the fact that we need to look at lurking variables behind such statistics as this, taken from the article posted above. The rise in armed robberies that the author just attributed to tightening gun-ownership, whilst leaving out the well known fact that the general population has grown considerably. He did not mention the rate per capita, just that there are more armed robberies.
People will leave out all kinds of facts if it assists them in making a point.

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Precisely. One reason I've stayed out of this debate as much as possible.

cum hoc ergo propter hoc

One of the most annoying problems with America. We rely on media statistics too heavily, often poorly drawn or flat out misleading interpretations of data. Then we use these statistics to imply that correlation means causation, and try and pass it off as truth . Which it isn't, necessarily. This applies broadly to a wide range of social and political discussions, even our own fisheries and conservation issues.

Critical observation of statistical data is important, but it rarely provides you with the details needed to draw a proper conclusion. The gun debate is riddled with these intricacies and failures. We have tons of statistics showing crime rates going one way or another in relation to gun laws, but nothing showing what types of law enforcement, community development or any other number of variables could contribute to the rate of gun violence.

We've become victims of our inability to look at the larger picture and ask questions that aren't posed to us directly by the media. We frame our reality according to the social and political dichotomies of us vs. them and suffer because of it. Each of us wants to be an expert on every subject and poise our entire perspective according to shoddy reasoning and misrepresentation of "truth" in the media.

Which is unfortunate. Because it's my opinion that our pettiness in focusing on gun control keeps us from addressing the more important issue of mental health. We can also cite the bible and talk about morality all we want, but those of us who've lived with the mentally ill know there are limitations to how much morality can be imparted to someone that is incapable of connecting emotionally to other human beings.

We live in a time when every single state is cutting funds to mental health programs. Personality and mental disorders are everywhere. But it's an uncomfortable topic. No one likes to think about them unless forced to. Further, there are still people who think mental disorders are the result of some enigmatic moral decay in society. Idiots like Michael Savage, who says that autism isn't real and that we can fix autistic kids by telling them to, "straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot."

I can tell you that in a room full of children with special needs, Mr. Savage would be the only fucking retard.

So how do we prevent firearm based murders? I don't believe we can prevent them all. Nor would I want to. You won't impact gang warfare with gun laws. Firearm murders will always find other ways to happen. I won't show you statistics or other "facts" to lead you to that conclusion. All I can do is appeal to your sense of reason. I do think that we can impact these mass shooting sprees by focusing on mental health using many of the suggestions imparted in this discussion by a few others. Our current programs are sad and hardly robust. But as the greatest country in the world, there's no excuse. Especially when it's the lives our beautiful children at stake.

Any of you here that weren't breathing in the 50's need a history lesson. You could go in to a hardware store and buy a gun. You could put that gun in a rack or under the seat of the truck and no one would steal it. Most kids got a 22 in their early teens if not sooner. People left their doors unlocked at night, no tweakers would break in. Most small town kids went to school and hunting afterwards, guns in the car or truck they drove to school. No mass murders that I can recall, with the exception of Korea, but that was war.

Families had a father and mother for the most part. Sunday the family went to church or temple. Most kids finished high school and went on to work or college. Marriages lasted longer, fewer single parents. Sorry, no same sex marriages...

If trouble started between folks, the last thought was to go shoot someone. ADD HDD, and the other alphabet soup of disorders were rare if at all. Yeah, there was always one kid that stood out as being weird. But they weren't killing people. It wasn't in our makeup.

Kids in the inner cites didn't have it so good. What was there to do in the "concrete jungle"? It didn't take long for gangs to develop, not the Crips and Bloods just yet, but that would come. Organized crime that began during Prohibition would grow and become sophisticated. Drugs began to show up more often. But even then and there, no mass murders.

As our populations grew, cities became crowded, suburbs began. Communities began to disappear. People stayed in their houses, church attendance dropped. Divorce rates rose. Counter-cultures blossomed. Racial unrest rioted. The Nation entered Viet Nam, killing popped up on the evening news every night. Black Panthers wanted to take over...

Now we are in the period where most of us can look at our society and see it's ills. It's not the guns, it's us, each and every one of us that lets the decline of the Republic continue. For the Republic is no more than each and every one of us. We are the solution, not the legislators.

Don't look for someone else to fix it, start with yourself and how you live your life and treat those around you.

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Roper, I agree with many of the things you've said on these issues.

But, you forgot to mention quite a few other characteristics of the 50's.

Women and minorities had little to no rights. Racism and sexism were regular, and even accepted, facts of life.

Just because ADHD wasn't named back then, doesn't mean it didn't exist.

Perhaps marriages lasted longer. But does that mean they were happier then? A bad marriage that lasts a long time can probably do more harm to kids than parents who are divorced but amiable. My grandma and grandpa were married for 40 years or so, until he died in the 90's. Their marriage was a mess, but they stayed together because they were catholic and that was what you were supposed to do. It was no fun at all for my mom, and she's dealt with a number of issues because of it.

Sure people didn't use the same amount of drugs--but there are other forms of addiction that probably existed.

I appreciate and can understand why folks might pine for "the old days." With that said, though, if given a choice, I would prefer to live now rather than then. I wouldn't want to live in a time when black kids, gays, women, and many others were second class citizens. Hell, they still in are in many places, but at least progress is being made.

I would like to see mandatory biweekly meetings of all school aged children with mental health professionals. 30 minutes every other week with a properly trained psychologist starting in first grade. These sessions would be part of the school curriculum, but cover more than just how a child is faring in school. I understand that this would be a costly endeavor, but think it is entirely worth it regardless of the massacre prevention aspect. Each counselor could see 120 kids in 2 weeks, leaving 10 hours per week for prep, notation, and other duties. In the schools I went to, that would equate to 1 counselor per graduating class. We had 3 "guidance" counselors in our 6-12 schools, not that large of an addition in payroll.

I think this plan could help in several ways: 1) overall academic performance should increase due to less emotional stress and improved attitude 2) there would be less bullying in schools as children learn how to deal with emotions and stressors 3) a trained professional would be able to spot signs of troubled youth and help guide the student and his/her family into additional counseling for potentially devastating behaviors 4) Maybe the most important, it would remove the stigma of visiting a psychologist if everyone leaving high school had done so for the previous 12 years.

As someone who has seen a mental health professional for things in the past, I wish I would have had this program as a child. The amount of tragedy in my life during my age 8-18 years was immense and when it really started to affect me later in life I was ashamed to go to therapy, until I had actually gone a few times and became comfortable with telling people. I think this happens far too often in our society, especially to men.

I just had a half hour discussion with a neighbor and she finally worked her position around to my point that we worry more about building a basketball arena and legalizing marijuana than we do to providing mental health care to even a low acceptable standard.

Roper, you address a number of issues and do it very well. The intact nuclear family is long gone, it is now single parent or blended families as about equal to intact families. Absent fathers are also a huge issue.

The prevalence of violence on TV and the incredibly graphic violence of movies, videos and video games is problematic as is the graphic nature of youtube posts and even news reports. We have desensitized a generation of kids.

Another thing I believe is, in the 50's and 60's, when kids or adults were seen to have serious mental health issues they were institutionalized. They were not home schooled, they were not in special classes at the public schools. That was why you didn't see them in schools or on the streets. Mental health care was deinstitutionalized in the 1970's as the result of challenges to "wrongful imprisonment" which is against the Constitution. The mentally ill have the right to live and die on the streets if they so choose. They have the right to roam neighborhoods and highways until they demonstrate they are at harm to self or others. Then they will be hospitalized, stabilized, and released (in most cases) to return to no structure, and quickly de-compensate and erode back to their illness. (I've worked with the homeless population quite a bit).

By the way, how is the new UW football stadium coming along...Priorities are priorities.

"In 1954, there were only a dozen armed robberies in London but, by the 1990s — after decades of ever tightening gun-ownership restrictions — there were more than a hundred times as many armed robberies."

I just wanted to pointout the fact that we need to look at lurking variables behind such statistics as this, taken from the article posted above. The rise in armed robberies that the author just attributed to tightening gun-ownership, whilst leaving out the well known fact that the general population has grown considerably. He did not mention the rate per capita, just that there are more armed robberies.
People will leave out all kinds of facts if it assists them in making a point.

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Pat, I don't see that-but there's way too much stuff to scan through to find it! What I read was that despite severe restrictions, armed robberies increased. That's an observation, an I didn't see any attribution. Perhaps you can link to the article?

For you folks who don't see any need for the millions and millions (sorry to sound like Carl Sagen here) of guns, think on this: There are 5 million Remington 700's floating around in this country. That's 5 BIG ONES fellas. China does NOT have the world's largest standing army. I wonder if things would have been different if the Tibetans were armed thus, or the Norwegians in WWII, or the Jewish people in Krakow... Just wonderin`.

BTW, I carried a "massaged" Rem 700 in 1969 as my long range weapon in Vietnam. Great gun, accurate, dependable, and could send the "communication" downrange a looooooooong way.

A "Lockdown Button" in schools (such as a fire alarm) where it is easily accessible to teacher/principal/administrators to activate, should some gunman enter the school. It could automatically lock doors for every classroom in the school. Or, in conjunction, add a "safehouse" room (bulletproof of course) in each classroom (big enough to pack in 40 kids). As the lockdown alarm goes off, everyone knows to rush to their "safehouse". Better than arming teachers and adding 20 security guards in a school. It might be a bit expensive tho. Or, some kid will pull the alarm as a joke. Just a thought.

But, you forgot to mention quite a few other characteristics of the 50's.

Jason

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Jason, you are absolutely right. My post was myopic, but then we are only talking about the gun culture/control issue here. Why did we lose respect for life? When did shooting others over petty aggravations become prevalent? I have my personal beliefs but they would anger quite a few here. Going there would do no good at this point.

A "Lockdown Button" in schools (such as a fire alarm) where it is easily accessible to teacher/principal/administrators to activate, should some gunman enter the school. It could automatically lock doors for every classroom in the school. Or, in conjunction, add a "safehouse" room (bulletproof of course) in each classroom (big enough to pack in 40 kids). As the lockdown alarm goes off, everyone knows to rush to their "safehouse". Better than arming teachers and adding 20 security guards in a school. It might be a bit expensive tho. Or, some kid will pull the alarm as a joke. Just a thought.

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There are many good ways to add security to a school that wouldn't make it feel like a prison. A lockdown button spaced similarly to a fire alarm pull would be a fine idea. Even better/in addition to would be to have the security system wired up to gun shot detectors. If a shot is sensed the police are notified, doors are locked, and an alarm is sounded, etc.

A very simple and inexpensive change would be that all classroom doors are normally locked and and can only be opened from the outside with a key. The doors would be required to be CLOSED during class. In the event of a shooter, most kids would be safe and sound behind locked doors assuming it didn't happen b/w classes.

It also wouldn't be hard to make a single point of entry in to schools with something like turnstiles for entry. You enter the school in to the "safe zone" and in the morning simply pass through a turstile in to the school. Once school starts the turnstiles are locked it's physically impossible to enter. Visitors come in to the security zone and can show ID, reason for entering, etc. This could be through bullet proof glass in to the office or over a video monitor. Once they're cleared the office buzzes them in. One step better coule be the on site officer wands them before entering. A system like this would not be overly expensive and could be addapted to most standard schools.

These school schootings are already statistical "outliers". It won't take much of a change to reduce their odds of happening even more. Obviously, the true answer though is identifying these sick individuals before they decide to shoot up a school, but securing the school is a start in the right direction.

There are many good ways to add security to a school that wouldn't make it feel like a prison. A lockdown button spaced similarly to a fire alarm pull would be a fine idea. Even better/in addition to would be to have the security system wired up to gun shot detectors. If a shot is sensed the police are notified, doors are locked, and an alarm is sounded, etc.

A very simple and inexpensive change would be that all classroom doors are normally locked and and can only be opened from the outside with a key. The doors would be required to be CLOSED during class. In the event of a shooter, most kids would be safe and sound behind locked doors assuming it didn't happen b/w classes.

It also wouldn't be hard to make a single point of entry in to schools with something like turnstiles for entry. You enter the school in to the "safe zone" and in the morning simply pass through a turstile in to the school. Once school starts the turnstiles are locked it's physically impossible to enter. Visitors come in to the security zone and can show ID, reason for entering, etc. This could be through bullet proof glass in to the office or over a video monitor. Once they're cleared the office buzzes them in. One step better coule be the on site officer wands them before entering. A system like this would not be overly expensive and could be addapted to most standard schools.

These school schootings are already statistical "outliers". It won't take much of a change to reduce their odds of happening even more. Obviously, the true answer though is identifying these sick individuals before they decide to shoot up a school, but securing the school is a start in the right direction.

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This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. So the first time there is fire in the school the doors get locked in a different kind of panic.

Doors are always exit hardware equipped, per current codes. This is in place everywhere that is up to fire code. The intruder in the hallway would not be able to enter from the hall because of the locked doors. Many locations already use this feature with good access control.

Any of you here that weren't breathing in the 50's need a history lesson. You could go in to a hardware store and buy a gun. You could put that gun in a rack or under the seat of the truck and no one would steal it. Most kids got a 22 in their early teens if not sooner. People left their doors unlocked at night, no tweakers would break in. Most small town kids went to school and hunting afterwards, guns in the car or truck they drove to school. No mass murders that I can recall, with the exception of Korea, but that was war.

Families had a father and mother for the most part. Sunday the family went to church or temple. Most kids finished high school and went on to work or college. Marriages lasted longer, fewer single parents. Sorry, no same sex marriages...

If trouble started between folks, the last thought was to go shoot someone. ADD HDD, and the other alphabet soup of disorders were rare if at all. Yeah, there was always one kid that stood out as being weird. But they weren't killing people. It wasn't in our makeup.

Kids in the inner cites didn't have it so good. What was there to do in the "concrete jungle"? It didn't take long for gangs to develop, not the Crips and Bloods just yet, but that would come. Organized crime that began during Prohibition would grow and become sophisticated. Drugs began to show up more often. But even then and there, no mass murders.

As our populations grew, cities became crowded, suburbs began. Communities began to disappear. People stayed in their houses, church attendance dropped. Divorce rates rose. Counter-cultures blossomed. Racial unrest rioted. The Nation entered Viet Nam, killing popped up on the evening news every night. Black Panthers wanted to take over...

Now we are in the period where most of us can look at our society and see it's ills. It's not the guns, it's us, each and every one of us that lets the decline of the Republic continue. For the Republic is no more than each and every one of us. We are the solution, not the legislators.

Don't look for someone else to fix it, start with yourself and how you live your life and treat those around you.

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You are insane

in the "good old days" thousands of people were lynched just for being black, churches were bombed, women were treated like second class citizens, being gay was criminalized. Society didn't even think these things were outrageous.